I just emptied my personal e-mail box completely for the first time since 2017. Yes, it was stuffed with nine years of e-mails -- well, not every e-mail I received, of course. Fan mail, of course, and then some notes from a few friends that were nice. I also saved the not so nice ones, the kind with digs, veiled insults, and unkind remarks that hurt me from people who told me repeatedly that they were my friends. It took me a long time back then to end relationships with bullies and toxic people, and I would pour over those nasty e-mails, usually thinking I was reading into it too much because hey, they said they were my friends, right?
After Mom died, the blinders finally fell off, and I saw people for who they were, not for who I hoped they were. That's when I began cutting ties so I could start my journey toward peace and calm, although at the time I didn't know that's what I was doing.
I was aware that I should have gone through all my saved e-mails and just let them be marked read. Instead, I marked them as unread and ignored them. I let them sit for about three years just gathering virtual dust while I stewed over what to do, which path to follow, if I should abandon everything everyone told me I needed, etc. I've always done best on my own, and I am not a group thinker. The herd is mostly nasty toward people like me, that's what I learned from trying to fit in.
Anyway, I've been slowly learning how to deal with this sort of thing, and recently I found inspiration that helped. I decided to read the saved e-mails again, all of them, one last time. The happy now seemed a little sad. I was so willing to settle for the tiniest crumb of friendship. The not so nice ones just seemed pathetic, too. How terrible it must be, to use such tactics to hurt someone who cares about you. I'll never understand the reasons for that. They were never my friends.
Anyway, they're all read and put to rest. I am not sorry that I held onto them for so long. Nor do I regret finally letting them go. I feel like I just spring cleaned my heart.
Image credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
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